Last April, I wrote this post on the rollout of a great new feature: Google Slides Audio. Fast forward several months, and some people had access to the feature, and some didn't [raises hand and rolls eyes]. For whatever reason, Google paused the rollout. However, it's finally available to those of us who didn't have it! Rapid Release domains should have it immediately and Scheduled Release domains should see it by the end of November. Just in time for holiday party photo slideshows, amirite?
0 Comments
Happy April, everyone! Today I wanted to let you know about an exciting update to Google Slides. In Google's official G Suite stream of updates, they announced that Google Slides is finally getting audio! It's a slow rollout, so we don't have access yet, but hopefully it will be soon (I'm hoping by the end of April). Much like inserting an image into a slide, you will go to Insert > Audio and select a file (MP3 or WAVE) from your Google Drive. You can use music that you already have (be careful with copyright, though), or you can use free stock music. YouTube has a great library of free stock music that you can download, or if you just Google free stock music, there are many sites you can visit to find audio. Once inserted, you have options to play the audio for a specific slide, or have it run through the whole slideshow. You can adjust the volume and also have it play automatically or upon a click while in presentation mode. This feature will be a great addition to Slides. I have had a lot of teachers ask me about how to do slideshows with photos and music toward the end of the year, so they can showcase all of the fun things that have happened throughout the year. Before, PowerPoint was a better option, but now Google Slides can be the way to go! If you pair it with the Photo Slideshow Add-on in Slides, you can easily upload photos you have saved in Google Drive or Google Photos. Each photo goes to its own slide without you having to do it manually! When you are ready to present, you can go to File > Publish to the Web and use the link they provide to have your whole slideshow playing on an automatic loop. This way you can have the music and slides play without you having to click through it! Below is a screenshot of the options you have for publishing. You could also have students utilize this new feature and use a screencasting tool like Screencastify or Loom to have them record their own narration along with their slides and music.
Have any other ideas of how to use this upcoming feature? Comment below! You may notice a couple of things about the blog. One: it's been a month since I've posted - sorry about that! I have been fortunate to have been very busy this past month. Two: I've given the blog a bit of a makeover! My husband, who works in advertising, and I came up with a new name. Welcome to IgnitEDlearning! I hope you like the change as much as I do. For today's Digital Tool Tidbit, we are talking SlidesCarnival. One of my fellow Instructional Facilitators, Teresa, introduced me to SlidesCarnival when we were working on presentations for our district mini-conference. I immediately fell in lllooovvve. In a nutshell, SlidesCarnival provides FREE Google Slides and PowerPoint templates. They are all customizable and help you to create a presentation that is visually appealing and engaging. Here are a couple of title pages for presentations I have used: Each template also has a page with little icons that you can copy and paste anywhere in the presentation. You can change the colors of the icons as well. Plus, downloading the templates is super easy! With all this said, I'll offer a little food for thought on the idea of slide presentations. Slide presentations can be very ineffective and not allow students to learn. Slides can easily turn into a "sit and get" presentation, where students jot down notes but aren't truly engaged. I had a professor in college who literally stood at the front and read directly from her slides, adding no additional information. I tried my best to write everything down, but she went too fast for me to get everything; then one day she made the files available to us; at that point I quit writing and completely checked out.
I challenge you to make slides engaging for students, using them for discussion starters, or make them interactive, using Pear Deck or Nearpod. Use Slides for student collaboration or interactive activities, like these from Ditch That Textbook. There are so many possibilities beyond the sit and get! The amazing Sarah Thomas (serious guys, she's the best, and I'm not just saying that because she reads my blog), Instructional Facilitator at WRHS, shared the video below on her blog, which highlights the 6 major updates to Slides. Here's a shakedown of the updates: 1. Insert things from your Google Keep 2. Link a slide from one slideshow into another slideshow and be able to sync updates to the slide across slideshows (how many times can I say slide?) 3. Insert editable diagrams 4. Grid view lets you see all your slides in a grid 5. Skip slides lets you skip specific slides during your presentation 6. Get Add-ons (See below the video for more!) More on Add-ons If you don't know about Add-ons, they are available in a lot of the Google Apps, and essentially they are tools that add functionality to a Google App (like Flubaroo, a popular Sheets Add-on). Google Slides now has Add-on capabilities. Now, since it's new, there aren't a ton available, but you can bet the library will start growing quickly. Matt Miller of Ditch That Textbook shared a post about the Add-Ons. Here's a rundown of the best for educators: 1. Icons by Noun Project: Spice up your presentation visuals with icons 2. Shutterstock Editor: Edit the photos in your slideshow, including adding filters (*note Shutterstock also lets you buy stock photos from this Add-on, I'd just stick with the editing capabilities); you can also add emojis to your photos, so you can easily do #BookSnaps! 3. Unsplash: FREE to use photos, right within Slides (great to have students use so you don't have to worry about copyright infringement) 4. Photo Slideshow: Imports photos from your Drive; this would be GREAT for photos you want to show in a slideshow on team days or for parents! To install Add-ons, just click Add-ons within your Google Slides menu, and then Get add-ons. From there, you will see the ones available so far! So overall, these updates are terrific in adding functionality. I know I use Slides a ton, and a lot of other teachers do as well. Hopefully, you see something here you can utilize! As always, let me know how I can help! |
AuthorChristin Barkemeyer Archives
April 2020
Categories
All
|